So I didn't like the ending of this game. Based on the petition I figure others didn't either.

It wasn't just that both endings were depressing, it was the fact that they both made most of game seem pointless. If you save Chloe, what was the point of forming all those relationships, saving Kate, bringing the culprits to justice, saving Joyce and David's relationship, setting up Warren with Brooke/romancing Warren, all for them to die a few days later? If you save Arcadia Bay, what was the point of having the gift at all? To torture Max? (Hey, why don't I give you this gift allowing you to spend the most amazing 5 days with your best friend/fall in love with her, only to make you realise she will die regardless?)

It all seems pointless.

I wanted an ending where Chloe and the Bay was saved, the culprits are brought to justice AND both the tornado and the time travel made sense. So I made one of my own.

My ending starts the same way as the sacrifice Chloe option. Max is in pieces about the idea of letting Chloe die but knows that they can't live happily after this, knowing a whole town was sacrificed for their benefit...so she goes back using the photo. However when she's there, hearing Chloe's panicked voice and knowing what's about to happen, she can't help herself. She runs out of her hiding place, physically placing herself between Nathan and Chloe. Nathan fires the shot but instead of it hitting Chloe in the heart (lung?) it hits Max in the shoulder (Max being shorter than Chloe). Max slumps to the floor. Nathan terrified at what he's done runs out of the bathroom. Chloe is stunned to see that the person who literally took a bullet for her was the best friend she'd thought abandoned her five years ago.

Max wakes in the hospital and is relieved to see Chloe alive and well. She's glad to hear Nathan has been arrested but is also panicking about what she's done. Now the tornado will still be coming. Also worried about Kate, she tells Chloe what is going on with her and gives Chloe all the information she needs to talk Kate down from what she's about to do. Meanwhile, Nathan's confession incriminates Mark Jefferson, the bunker is discovered and Jefferson is also arrested.

During these few days there is no weird weather, no animals dying and the tornado doesn't seem to be coming. Max is confused as to why she managed to save both Chloe and stop the tornado. Then it hits her. The event that wasn't supposed to be changed wasn't Chloe dying. It was Nathan firing that shot.

In the timelines where Nathan fires the shot, he gets arrested, because even wealth won't protect you from shooting a student at school. Mark Jefferson is incriminated, the bunker is discovered and the Prescott family is under investigation (especially finding out that Sean Prescott point blank refused to deal with his clearly mentally unstable son - this is shown in a letter from Nathan's psychiatrist somewhere in the game, I forget). This is a chain of events that has massive implications for the town. Because of the Prescott's influence over the Bay and their plans to take it over, wreaking havoc on the local environment, their being investigated is essential to this timeline. That's why changing it has such large repercussions. Therefore it wasn't saving Chloe that was the problem, it was how Chloe was saved. Nathan needed to fire that shot and someone had to take the bullet.

Now as for why Max is given this gift, I like to think it was given by the spirit of Rachel Amber represented as the doe. Max states that she feels like Rachel Amber is guiding her to the truth, which would explain this. However, Rachel didn't give Max the gift to bring justice for herself. Think about it. Even if Max couldn't control time and therefore did nothing in that bathroom, Nathan and Jefferson would still be arrested. The only reason she was given this gift at that point, has to be to save Chloe. Rachel wanted to protect her friend and make sure she was happy. She knew how close Chloe and Max had been as kids and so decided to bring them back together. Max didn't save Chloe the right way the first time around but that was because they were still quite estranged and Max wasn't brave enough. Therefore the events of the five days were meant to prepare her for what she needed to do. Make the ultimate sacrifice.

Chloe is in danger several times during the five days and Chloe thinks this is because Max has merely been delaying her destiny. However I think these were challenges for Max. Pulling the gun on the drug dealer and then saving Chloe from the tracks showed Max she could be impulsive and think fast in dire situations. The decision to assist Chloe with her suicide, showed Max she had the mental strength to make difficult, undesirable decisions. Then when Chloe was shot by Jefferson, Max having to travel through the past within the past multiple times showed Max how desperate she was to save Chloe and exactly how far she would go to make sure Chloe lived. These five days changes Max. Not only are her feelings of friendship or love for Chloe (depending how you play it) reawakened, she is a stronger person. She now has the physical ability, mental strength and motivation to make the tough choice. She earns the right to change Chloe's fate, by proving she's willing to risk everything in order to do so.

The moral of this story would be that relationships can't be healed with quick fixes and shortcuts, you have to put your neck on the line if you seriously want to keep someone in your life.

PS. I like to think that while Max was in the hospital, Chloe submits the butterfly photo to the contest on her behalf. Max wins the contest and they go to San Francisco together.

TechnoManiac98

31st Oct 2015, 17:47

tl:dr? theres no way i'm going to read through all that crap :/

KristaD

31st Oct 2015, 17:55

Hmm...Spoiler ? There is no 3rd ending...

Tataboj

31st Oct 2015, 18:09

So... Happily ever after ending.

Nickolaos87

31st Oct 2015, 19:16

tl:dr? theres no way i'm going to read through all that crap :/
Awesome. Keep fighting the good fight. Too many people seem to think that reading gets you somewhere in life. Sounds like you're ahead of the game.

Hmm...Spoiler ? There is no 3rd ending...
No there isn't. Well spotted.

KristaD

31st Oct 2015, 22:15

Awesome. Keep fighting the good fight. Too many people seem to think that reading gets you somewhere in life. Sounds like you're ahead of the game.

No there isn't. Well spotted.

Nothing escapes my keep eye! :D Not even irony.

TechnoManiac98

2nd Nov 2015, 03:04

so after spending a.. well.. good amount of time i can say it was well worth it! nice thinking. can i borrow your head? ;3

TroublesomeBirdsong

3rd Nov 2015, 15:37

Problem with this is, when Max uses a photo to go back in time, she is entering a bounded memory. Once she alters the memory, she doesn't just continue on from that point and live through the week again, she leaves the memory and wakes up specifically at the same point in time as when she first entered the memory. So in your scenario, as soon as Max got shot instead of Chloe, thus changing the past, the memory would end and Max would immediately wake up on Friday in the new timeline she had just created, not Monday or Tuesday in the hospital. The 'stand-in' Max that went to the hospital and has now existed throughout the week wouldn't have known that Kate was going to jump and thus wouldn't have known to tell Chloe to help her. She also wouldn't have known to tell the cops about Jefferson or Rachel, but I guess we can assume Nathan getting arrested takes care of that. She also, more importantly, wouldn't have known not to use her rewind powers. If you think about it, it's Max's constant rewinding that has torn the fabric of time enough to create a magic time tornado. Like she says, that's her storm. She caused it. And saving Chloe is just the big event that leads Max to cause the ripples in the first place.

So, might I suggest a couple of possible ways that would enable your theory to function within the science of the game.

1) Max is shot and dies. She sacrifices herself instead of Chloe. Thus Chloe is saved. Nathan is arrested. Jefferson is arrested. Most importantly Max, being dead, doesn't continue time-travelling throughout the week, meaning the tornado doesn't happen. But Kate dies because there was no-one to help her.

2) If you're desperate for Kate to survive, then plausibly you could say that Kate doesn't jump, because Nathan confesses what happened to her and the cops bring her in for counseling, before she has a chance to.

3) If you're desperate for an implausibly happy ending where no-one dies and there are no consequences, then you've missed the point of the game and seem keen on implicating a few "quick fixes and shortcuts" of your own. Hell, I'm surprised you weren't trying to bring Rachel back to life as well. But if you're adamant, there is a way.
Max uses the photo. Max intervenes. Max gets shot, but survives and ends up in a coma for the week, until she wakes up (from the bathroom memory) in the hospital on Friday at the exact point that Chloe and her were at the lighthouse in the original timeline. Thus the 'stand-in' Max hasn't been conscious to do any time-travelling during the week, so the tornado never happens.

But you realise, of course, that this ending you've outlined would be just as pointless as the others, because none of your choices throughout the game end up mattering in this one either. If you failed to stop Kate from jumping in episode 2, it doesn't matter because she's still alive in this ending. If you let David kill Jefferson, it doesn't matter, because that didn't happen either. If you let Chloe kill Frank, that doesn't matter either. Victoria is never humbled and never hints at the possibility of a friendship with Max. David is still a jerk, is still at loggerheads with Chloe and never gets any redemption. Neither does Nathan really. Because that all happened during the timeline that you've now erased. The fact is, any ending that involves using the butterfly photo to change things is just as pointless as the two endings we were given, because it's basically just a big reset button that deletes all of your choices. Like you said, the sacrifice Arcadia Bay ending basically deletes your choices as well, by killing everyone and destroying the town. If you saved Kate, she's dead now. If you stopped Chloe from killing Frank, he's dead now. As are Alyssa and Evan. None of it mattered either way. That is why people were disappointed with the way the game ended, but that doesn't mean giving them a happy ending like this one with Chloe and the town saved would be any less pointless, because your choices throughout the game still didn't cause it.

Sure, how Max grew as a character isn't erased, because she remembers everything, but that is literally the only thing that changes in this scenario. Chloe's development and maturing over the week is just as important as Max's, but if you save her in the bathroom, none of that ever happened either. Sure she's grateful that Max saved her, but she isn't the same Chloe that recognises and accepts her faults by Friday. She certainly isn't the Chloe that's willing to sacrifice herself for the town anymore. She still hates her life and Arcadia Bay. And so, any progress that Max made in the game helping Chloe and the other characters, she'll have to do all over again in an implied unseen epilogue.

Now, I can't really offer any solutions or alternatives to this. The reset makes perfect sense within the narrative of the game, it's just not very satisfying for the gameplay. The only way the story could make your choices remain relevant in the end, is to not use the reset button, but still save everyone in the town somehow. Maybe, working off of the premise that Chloe not dying is what caused the storm, all she'd have to do on Friday is commit suicide off the lighthouse cliff and the tornado would just dissipate before doing any more damage to the town. But that then begs the question, why did the storm keep coming when Chloe died at the end of episode 4? Alternatively Max could use her powers to convince everyone to evacuate the town earlier (I'm not sure why she didn't try this at all). Or she could go around saving everyone individually, like she did with Alyssa and Evan. None of these seem terribly appropriate however.

Now you could say, 'it's the journey, not the destination that counts', and sure the choices you make do shape the story during the game even if they didn't matter at the end. But really, for this kind of game, the destination should be just as important as the journey, and the destination needs 'consequences and sadness' as much as it needs 'saviors and happiness'. If everything is tied up like a nice happy package at the end, then there would be no need for 'hope'.

Tataboj

3rd Nov 2015, 16:54

I think some people missed point of this style of games. This genre isn't about gameplay. It's about story and things related to it (atmosphere, characters). If the end is good for the narrative but isn't satisfying for gameplay, then I'd say it is a success.

Nickolaos87

3rd Nov 2015, 19:14

so after spending a.. well.. good amount of time i can say it was well worth it! nice thinking. can i borrow your head? ;3
Well, thanks. I appreciate you reading it :)

Problem with this is, when Max uses a photo to go back in time, she is entering a bounded memory. Once she alters the memory, she doesn't just continue on from that point and live through the week again, she leaves the memory and wakes up specifically at the same point in time as when she first entered the memory. So in your scenario, as soon as Max got shot instead of Chloe, thus changing the past, the memory would end and Max would immediately wake up on Friday in the new timeline she had just created, not Monday or Tuesday in the hospital. The 'stand-in' Max that went to the hospital and has now existed throughout the week wouldn't have known that Kate was going to jump and thus wouldn't have known to tell Chloe to help her. She also wouldn't have known to tell the cops about Jefferson or Rachel, but I guess we can assume Nathan getting arrested takes care of that. She also, more importantly, wouldn't have known not to use her rewind powers. If you think about it, it's Max's constant rewinding that has torn the fabric of time enough to create a magic time tornado. Like she says, that's her storm. She caused it. And saving Chloe is just the big event that leads Max to cause the ripples in the first place.

So, might I suggest a couple of possible ways that would enable your theory to function within the science of the game.

1) Max is shot and dies. She sacrifices herself instead of Chloe. Thus Chloe is saved. Nathan is arrested. Jefferson is arrested. Most importantly Max, being dead, doesn't continue time-travelling throughout the week, meaning the tornado doesn't happen. But Kate dies because there was no-one to help her.

2) If you're desperate for Kate to survive, then plausibly you could say that Kate doesn't jump, because Nathan confesses what happened to her and the cops bring her in for counseling, before she has a chance to.

3) If you're desperate for an implausibly happy ending where no-one dies and there are no consequences, then you've missed the point of the game and seem keen on implicating a few "quick fixes and shortcuts" of your own. Hell, I'm surprised you weren't trying to bring Rachel back to life as well. But if you're adamant, there is a way.
Max uses the photo. Max intervenes. Max gets shot, but survives and ends up in a coma for the week, until she wakes up (from the bathroom memory) in the hospital on Friday at the exact point that Chloe and her were at the lighthouse in the original timeline. Thus the 'stand-in' Max hasn't been conscious to do any time-travelling during the week, so the tornado never happens.

But you realise, of course, that this ending you've outlined would be just as pointless as the others, because none of your choices throughout the game end up mattering in this one either. If you failed to stop Kate from jumping in episode 2, it doesn't matter because she's still alive in this ending. If you let David kill Jefferson, it doesn't matter, because that didn't happen either. If you let Chloe kill Frank, that doesn't matter either. Victoria is never humbled and never hints at the possibility of a friendship with Max. David is still a jerk, is still at loggerheads with Chloe and never gets any redemption. Neither does Nathan really. Because that all happened during the timeline that you've now erased. The fact is, any ending that involves using the butterfly photo to change things is just as pointless as the two endings we were given, because it's basically just a big reset button that deletes all of your choices. Like you said, the sacrifice Arcadia Bay ending basically deletes your choices as well, by killing everyone and destroying the town. If you saved Kate, she's dead now. If you stopped Chloe from killing Frank, he's dead now. As are Alyssa and Evan. None of it mattered either way. That is why people were disappointed with the way the game ended, but that doesn't mean giving them a happy ending like this one with Chloe and the town saved would be any less pointless, because your choices throughout the game still didn't cause it.

Sure, how Max grew as a character isn't erased, because she remembers everything, but that is literally the only thing that changes in this scenario. Chloe's development and maturing over the week is just as important as Max's, but if you save her in the bathroom, none of that ever happened either. Sure she's grateful that Max saved her, but she isn't the same Chloe that recognises and accepts her faults by Friday. She certainly isn't the Chloe that's willing to sacrifice herself for the town anymore. She still hates her life and Arcadia Bay. And so, any progress that Max made in the game helping Chloe and the other characters, she'll have to do all over again in an implied unseen epilogue.

Now, I can't really offer any solutions or alternatives to this. The reset makes perfect sense within the narrative of the game, it's just not very satisfying for the gameplay. The only way the story could make your choices remain relevant in the end, is to not use the reset button, but still save everyone in the town somehow. Maybe, working off of the premise that Chloe not dying is what caused the storm, all she'd have to do on Friday is commit suicide off the lighthouse cliff and the tornado would just dissipate before doing any more damage to the town. But that then begs the question, why did the storm keep coming when Chloe died at the end of episode 4? Alternatively Max could use her powers to convince everyone to evacuate the town earlier (I'm not sure why she didn't try this at all). Or she could go around saving everyone individually, like she did with Alyssa and Evan. None of these seem terribly appropriate however.

Now you could say, 'it's the journey, not the destination that counts', and sure the choices you make do shape the story during the game even if they didn't matter at the end. But really, for this kind of game, the destination should be just as important as the journey, and the destination needs 'consequences and sadness' as much as it needs 'saviors and happiness'. If everything is tied up like a nice happy package at the end, then there would be no need for 'hope'.

Thanks for the interesting analysis. You caught something which I totally missed. I forgot she would've been in a bounded memory and therefore wouldn't have experienced the rest of the week. Luckily this wouldn't change the arrest and investigation storyline.

However I think you've misunderstood me on one point. I don't think the endings are pointless because they erase all your choices in the game, I don't really care about that. I think they're pointless from a narrative perspective.

Who gave Max the gift and why? The only implication in the story is that Rachel Amber gave her the gift - Max mentions how she thinks Rachel is guiding her.

If Rachel gave her this gift to save Chloe but let the town be destroyed as a result, it wouldn't make sense to me. Rachel was popular and had many friends in Arcadia Bay. Why would she want to see them all dead?

If Rachel gave her the gift simply to spend a few days with Chloe before having to watch her die and do nothing, isn't this kind of cruel? What would be the point of it?

To me a satisfactory ending would have been to know who gave Max the gift and why - or at least have some point to her having this gift other than using it and then realising she shouldn't have used it in the first place.

I think some people missed point of this style of games. This genre isn't about gameplay. It's about story and things related to it (atmosphere, characters). If the end is good for the narrative but isn't satisfying for gameplay, then I'd say it is a success.

Yes that's what I'm saying. I don't think the endings make sense from a narrative perspective. Unless its their intention to be vague and leave Max's gift as a mystery - but to me that just seems like a convenient plot device to have a dramatic/emotional choice at the end. Sacrificing a whole town for one friend feels out of character. On the other hand Max realising she shouldn't use time travel at all just seems like one of those unsatisfying 'and it was all a dream...' endings.

TroublesomeBirdsong

4th Nov 2015, 03:22

That isn't a 'pointless ending', it's an unanswered question. Sure, it's a pretty integral question, but leaving it unanswered doesn't make the ending pointless. It makes it unsatisfactory for you. Like Warren said, we'll never know if it was 'a wizard or a wormhole' that gave Max her powers and caused her actions to culminate into a tornado, but really we don't need to know. It happened.
Really the answer to the question 'Why can Max suddenly rewind time?' is... because life is strange.
And that's the point. Despite appearances, this game isn't sci-fi; it's meant to be about real 'life' issues with strange supernaturalism creeping in at the edges. If the story went into a convoluted explanation about where the powers came from, how, and what they were for, then that would tip the game over into a different genre and that's not what the developers intended.

The things you said about Rachel seem like good reasons why Rachel didn't give Max the powers. Because you're right, she probably wouldn't want everyone dead or to torture Max. I tend to believe that the hints that Rachel was 'magic', 'a time-traveller like Max', 'still alive', 'guiding Max', 'the one who gave Max powers' etc. were red herrings that the developers put in. The fanbase latched onto those ideas as a way to explain the inexplicable and romanticised her character into something powerful, only for DONTNOD to hit them with the stark reality that 'no, she's just normal and she's dead, she's been dead this whole time'. All that's left of her is the ghost deer, waiting for her body to be found, so she (and Chloe) can have peace. Everything else was just wild extrapolation. Even in the finale, Chloe's theory isn't that Rachel gave Max her powers. None of the characters even consider that. It's that the storm is 'Rachel's revenge' on the town.

We assume that Rachel is some benevolent force, because that helps us want to find out what happened to her. But we never met her and the various accounts of what she was like differ and may be biased and unreliable. We really don't know that much about her for certain. Maybe she was just as reckless and angry as Chloe is. Maybe she didn't really feel the same way about Chloe, as Chloe did about her. We only have Chloe's word for it, and as it turns out Rachel was keeping some pretty big secrets from her. Now, I don't believe the storm was 'Rachel's Revenge', but I also don't believe that she is what the fandom paints her as.

Let's just say the powers were gifted to Max by 'the universe'. An unbiased, objective, inhuman source. Perhaps the universe gave Max the powers so she had a chance to find a way to take a few minutes to say goodbye to Chloe properly, which is why it automatically bumped her back to class from the bathroom. The problem was, Max hadn't recognised that it was Chloe in the bathroom and didn't understand why she'd gone back in time, so she changed everything, rather than accepting it. The universe had already shown Max a premonition of a possible future that would be caused if Max abused the power (the tornado), but again, Max didn't understand that's what that meant, and so kept prolonging Chloe's life. The universe continued to warn her that she was abusing her powers with the snow, the eclipse, the dead animals and the two moons, and tried to kill off Chloe in hope that would be enough to prevent the storm, but it wasn't. So it mainly just comes down to 'the universe' being terrible at miscommunication.

So, is this what happened? Was Rachel normal? Did the universe grant Max her powers so she had a chance to say goodbye and Max misunderstood and misused them? I don't know, maybe. But if I need an answer to that unanswered question, then I can choose this to be my headcanon. And you can choose your headcanon (as long as it makes sense within the structure of the game).

What if the game had a little message at the end that said, 'Tobanga, the totem pole, imbued Max with her powers, because it knew a storm was coming and that the only way to destroy it was for someone to make a willing sacrifice of themselves. And it was Max's job to prepare Chloe to do this'? That would answer your question 'Who gave Max her powers and why?' So would you be satisfied, then? Would the ending no longer feel pointless, because the game gave you a canon ending? Or would that annoy you because it's not the explanation you had in mind?
Some players might have liked that explanation, some might have hated it. Some players might like your explanation about Rachel giving her the powers, some might hate it. So giving an actual canon explanation hasn't solved anything. By refusing to answer the question, the game allows you to come up with, and find evidence for, a headcanon, which is just as possible as anyone else's. This is something you wouldn't be able to do if the game had stated a definitive answer, especially one you didn't like.

Leaving the question unanswered doesn't make the ending pointless. It makes it ambiguous, but open to interpretation, allowing the game to live on.

And it does still need to be at least a little about gameplay in the end, otherwise it shouldn't be a 'game'. If it's just about the story, then really, it should've been a TV show.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWzel4UWxSQ

Tataboj

4th Nov 2015, 07:16

Yes that's what I'm saying. I don't think the endings make sense from a narrative perspective. Unless its their intention to be vague and leave Max's gift as a mystery - but to me that just seems like a convenient plot device to have a dramatic/emotional choice at the end. Sacrificing a whole town for one friend feels out of character. On the other hand Max realising she shouldn't use time travel at all just seems like one of those unsatisfying 'and it was all a dream...' endings.
I think the same, but on the other hand there are lots of people, who defend the Sacrifice AB to death and say that "only insane people would kill their best friend for a town of barely known people". They forgot it's Max's hometown, so the people aren't barely known and there are so much wrong things about that statement but - whatever. :)

Theno81

4th Nov 2015, 13:19

I’ll make my explanation for the game. First of all game wants to state that there are no coincidences. You may see things as coincidences only because you don't know the reason. Just like everytime Max warns Alyssa, she thinks it is a coincidence. But it is not coincidence for Max since she knows the reason behind it. Game also wants to tell that you can’t actually change anything in the past but if you change something you create another reality instead. This is a theory of course. But Chaos Theory is not enough to explain the game alone. It just says small differences can lead completely different outcomes other than the supposed one. Like talking to someone or not can decide his death or life. But it doesn’t say this alteration destroys or disturbs the structure of reality because it doesn't include time travel at all. So here comes the alternative universe theory which may be utilized from time travel. It is another theory ofc and it may be picturized by Grandfather Paradox (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grandfather_paradox)

Which basically says you can’t actually change anything. You can only create alternative realities. But this doesn’t also mean though you create many alternative realities, you will create disasters for the reality you actually started. Since it will be only another reality and your actual reality will be the one you consciously stay anymore, so there won’t be any “main” reality. So if you change anything in the past whether it is significant or not, you can never end up in the reality you were in before. You may be in another reality that may exactly look like the one before but it will still be another reality. So there is no reason that creating other realities will occur disaster in another one.

But for the sake of the game we can assume it like that. But if this is true than this means there is a flaw in the logic of the game. Nothing in the universe or time will perish. Just like Chloe says in the end “whatever reality she ends up the memories they lived will be real”. So you can’t simply destroy information like it never existed. At the end when Max let Chloe die, she simply thinks that she reversed the actions she did. But actually she created just another reality again. So all of the alterations she did are still exist, so she wasn’t able to stop Tornado. There is no way she can prevent that Tornado, if it exists because of many alterations in time which Max thinks and believes at the end. Even if you let Chloe die you can’t simply end Tornado like this. So I think, developers are a bit confused on this one or couldn’t actually agree on a final decision. But let’s forget about it.

Actually there is a happy ending possible. When Max return to the bathroom in the end she could simply hit Nathan with something, without letting him to see her, to pass him out and explain everything Chloe when she showed up. So Chloe would be alive and make Jefferson and Nathan arrested. Kate wouldn’t try to suicide, Victoria and Nathan would be alive and Tornado never happened so Arcadia Bay wouldn’t be destroyed. And Max probably would wake up at the same place near lighthouse watching sun with Chloe. But that would still not happen since Chloe would die for whatever idiotic reason :rolleyes: before she reaches that day. Because Chloe should die in one way or another and next is why.

The story of the game as developers intended is like this, in my opinion. Souls or spirits are represented as animals in the game. Samuel also talks about spirit animals in the game. Doe is Rachel and blue butterfly is Chloe. Rachel is dead so is Chloe. In the end you can see that blue butterfly perches on the coffin and Max smiles when she sees it. So Max knows it is Chloe. Also it was the Chloe that keeps the photo of blue butterfly at the end and gives it to Max because she subconsciously knows she had to die at the end. At last she was ready to accept her destiny.

But this makes another conclusion. Game starts with that butterfly also. It is the exactly same butterfly that perched on the coffin at the end. And everything starts because of that butterfly. If that butterfly hadn’t lured Max to the corner nothing after that would happen. Nathan would see her. Also Chloe checks all cabinets before talking to him to see if anyone else is there. If they had seen Max in some way in the beginning, nothing in the game would happen. The only choice she had was to alter the event physically in the right time so she would be a part of that event and effectively change it. Also while everything happens butterfly stays in the bathroom at first. But in the end when Max let Chloe die, you see it flies out of the window just the way it came. You can consider it mission accomplished in the end when you sacrifice Chloe.

So that rewind power is given to Max by Chloe and she also lured Max to corner to make things happen. And so Max can keep the small part of Chloe’s consciousness that embodied in physical reality alive a bit longer so Chloe can help Max to find Rachel and make Jefferson arrested eventually. (This is a bit into spirituality and it’s a whole another and very deep topic but obviously some people among developers are interested in that topic more or less or simply they have another dream in their heads ;)) Because Chloe was the only person looking for Rachel. And Max doesn’t even know her. So without Chloe, Max wouldn’t even bother for solving the mystery or finding Rachel. And Rachel was dead already and was the one that guide Max to the lighthouse in her dreams in the form of doe. She was willing to be found and when Chloe found her dead body the doe disappears in the junk yard.

Max also has a gift as Jefferson stated many times. He said Max can see the things different. Also Max says at some point that “I can take pictures with my eyes” also she adds later “I can never erase the pictures of Rachel (they found in dark room) from my retina”. So she also had the gift of seeing visions of future. IMO Rachel is the one that shows the visions of Tornado to Max that want to point what may happen if she doesn’t use her power wisely. It was the most possible future that can happen because she already knew how Max will use the power (Since she knows Chloe and Max would need to use her powers carelessly just to convince her.). So it was both possible and impossible to prevent that Tornado regardless of what happened.

So since Chloe was already dead from the beginning, Max was never ever able to save her even for once. She also died in the other reality. Either by Max’s hand or by the illness. And Rachel was also missing and dead in other reality. So this alone shows their death were inevitable. And also not supposed to be prevented at first hand.

So sacrificing Chloe was not a sacrifice actually. And the purpose of Max was neither to save Chloe nor to stop Tornado or prevent it at first hand. Chloe was already dead and Tornado was not a reason but the result which Max understood at the end. The aim was always solving the mystery behind Rachel’s disappear and find person responsible for it and end it for once and all. By making Jefferson arrested, Max saved Nathan’s, Victoria’s and Kate’s lives at once. More importantly ended Jefferson’s crime and also saved possible future victims.

So though you couldn’t save Chloe your choices weren’t pointless. Ofc minor choices like the one that effects Joyce and David’s relationship won’t make more than showing a few other cut-scenes. If they wanted to make all that choices would radically effect the story, they had to create 4 or 5 more games with completely different stories and endings, which is not possible (at least maybe with the budget or time they had).

So the bad ending of this game is sacrificing Arcadia Bay. Though Max thinks she saved Chloe, Chloe will still die some time later for whatever stupid reason :D and since Max can’t rewind time this time - bc I assume it was given only to solve the mystery – she won’t be able to save Chloe. So Chloe and everyone in Arcadia Bay will be dead, though mystery still had been solved and future victims had been saved.

Good ending is sacrificing Chloe. Because as I said she was already dead and was supposed to live until that mystery is solved. Rachel was found so she was happy. Chloe was happy too, since Jefferson arrested and she lived one more week with her best friend. So only Max as the protagonist was sad :) but I assume she understood that was the right thing to do when she saw blue butterfly on the coffin. Good or bad, both endings were sad. I would like to have a happy ending too but that would require to change the story I think.

Though there are some flaws and mistakes in game I really liked the game and it was intensely emotional at the end. I didn’t feel betrayed because there was no happy ending. I simply don’t like sad endings. But I’ll happily play it if they make other seasons.

BTW this game is heavily inspired by Butterfly Effect movie which is a good thing. You can watch first movie which was awesome. But second one was simply ****. It can be even classified as porn. :hmm: Also there is Final Destination movie. Again first movie was awesome but other films were just disgusting death scenes compilations.

I thank you to developers for this awesome game and I hope this encourages others to create this type of out-of-the-box games.

Have fun ;)

PinkFrog

4th Nov 2015, 13:21

What if the game had a little message at the end that said, 'Tobanga, the totem pole, imbued Max with her powers, because it knew a storm was coming and that the only way to destroy it was for someone to make a willing sacrifice of themselves. And it was Max's job to prepare Chloe to do this'? That would answer your question 'Who gave Max her powers and why?' So would you be satisfied, then? Would the ending no longer feel pointless, because the game gave you a canon ending? Or would that annoy you because it's not the explanation you had in mind?

Lol... metichlorians come to mind.

PinkFrog

4th Nov 2015, 16:31

snip

That is some serious thinking here, thanks for sharing.

It actually hadn't occured to me to think of Rachel as an active part of the equation because she's... well... dead. But depending on what you think happens when you die (or more to the point what we think Dontnod is refering to, here) this might actually be part of story.
Same is for this final destination-kind of perception of death. Meaning: there is a pre-determined moment when death is supposed to happen. Didn't occur to me that anybody would think that or write that into the story. But sure, we don't know.

That spirit doe IS strange. It could indicate that such beliefs are part of the story.

Something to think about. Thanks.

EDIT: i still believe that the tornado is not caused by Chloe not-dying but by Max doing her first rewind. If she'd rewind for her dropped camera first, same thing (it would be less emotional that's why they used Chloe in the story). That's why Chloe dying later or not has no effect on the tornado. Therefore this butterfly thing being part of the soul and all that is also not what I think. Butterfly is used in the game as indicator for "actions that have consequences". It's in the UI widget as well. I think the blue butterfly just means: something is going to happen here that will have a massive, unexpected effect.
Basically, it's coincidence (as in "chaotic") that saving Chloe causes the tornado.
It just, you know: flapping of a butterfly-wing causes a tornado is the common meme expressing chaos theory. Max was in that corner because of the flapping butterfly-wing (to take the photo) which caused her being right then and there to start all the mass we encounter later on.

And, yeah, I think Rachel is dead, end of story for her. No ghost, no manipulations from beyond the veil. Is what I think... but mainly because that is mainstream perception of death, not because it is specifically hinted at in the game.
Ghost doe? I'm a bit lost here, truth be told. But with all the doe-stuff directly linked to Max (t-shirt, neckless, snow-globe, entry in diary, photo she likes) I think it's really just a spiritual animal for Max, being there for her when she is hurt, traumatized, sad. Yes, it's in the scrap-yard (twice... and not really at the grave either), but it's also at the lighthouse (what is the connection to Rachel here?) its in the nightmare... i dunno... could be several things i think.

My point is, the story can be seen without spiritual elements for the most parts and still make... sense, in a way.

simkelyte

30th Jan 2017, 08:02

I really like this game! Especially this third ending. Also i found about this ending more at gamespedition: http://www.gamespedition.com/pc-games/adventure-games/graphic-adventures/life-is-strange/life-is-strange-others/plot-issues-in-life-is-strange